d
two or three others, to whom I imparted them.[A] Do you like,
also, the ode to Autumn, and--

"Sigh on, sad heart, for love's eclipse"?

It was a beautiful time when I first read these poems. I was
staying in Hallowell, Maine, and could find no books that I
liked, except Hood's poems. You know how the town is built,
like a terraced garden on the river's bank; I used to go every
afternoon to the granite quarry which crowns these terraces,
and read till the sunset came casting its last glory on the
opposite bank. They were such afternoons as those in September
and October, clear, soft, and radiant. Nature held nothing
back. 'Tis many years since, and I have never again seen the
Kennebec, but remember it as a stream of noble character. It
was the first river I ever sailed up, realizing all which that
emblem discloses of life. Greater still would the charm have
been to sail downward along an unknown stream, seeking not a
home, but a ship upon the ocean.'

* * * * *

'_Newbury, Oct. 18, 1840._--It rained, and the day was pale
and sorrowful, the thick-fallen leaves even shrouded the
river. We went out in the boat, and sat under the bridge. The
pallid silence, the constant fall of the rain and leaves, were
most soothing, life had been for many weeks so crowded with
thought and feeling, pain and pleasure, rapture and care.
Nature seemed gently to fold us in her matron's mantle. On
such days the fall of the leaf does not bring sadness, only
meditation. Earth seemed to loose the record of past summer
hours from her permanent life, as lightly, and spontaneously,
as the great genius casts behind him a literature,--the
Odyssey he has outgrown. In the evening the rain ceased, the
west wind came, and we went out in the boat again for some
hours; indeed, we staid till the last clouds passed from the
moon. Then we climbed the hill to see the full light in solemn
sweetness over fields, and trees, and river.

'I never enjoyed anything more in its way than the three
days alone with ---- in her boat, upon the little river.
Not without reason was it that Goethe limits the days of
intercourse to _three_, in the Wanderjahre. If you have lived
so long in uninterrupted communion with any noble being, and
with nature, a remembrance of man's limitation